Small Business Security: Keeping your Information Safe

As a Louisville CPA firm that deals mostly with small businesses we know that security is an important issue that you must take seriously. Here are a few tips that can help keep your basic information safe from theft and loss:

1. Have a list of procedures in place for security upkeep of security and detailed steps to complete if security is breached.

Having detailed listings of what you do to keep your business safe along with a checklist that is followed often in order to continue security is important. Without plans and checklists some procedures can go by the wayside and cause easy access for those who are trying to hack into your business or employees who are out to steal from you.

Having procedures in place if your security is breached is very important in order to avoid panic limit the damage keep your business away from total loss and keep your data safe.

2. Train your employees on proper safety procedures.

While owners and managers do not want to include employees on all data some training is important in order to help employees protect the business on a day-to day-basis. While it is true you may own your business it is your employees who may interact with the business transactions and customers more and they are sometimes more likely to see problems before you may.

3. Use difficult and multiple passwords and keep these passwords in a safe secure place.

Change them often.

Using common words or business names make it easy for people to break your codes and access your data. By using symbols (@#$%) a combination of capital and small case letters along with numbers passwords will be overly difficult to decode. It is also important that you do not use the same password for any two things or reuse any passwords.

People often think of changing software passwords often but it is also important to change your computer passwords security system passwords banking passwords and any other passwords that could contain company data software or money. The more often you change these passwords the less likely that someone can hack into your stuff and steal your assets.

4. Encrypt and back up your data.

Your information is very important so when you share it with your accountant bank or any other person you need to password encrypt your data so it cannot be stolen and used by an outside force.

Having backup data is important in case something happens to your computers or other storage devices. Having an external hard drive that is backed up daily will allow you to retain limited data.

5. Mobile use of data is most at risk so take advantage of firewalls and anti-virus software.

a. In an age of Wi-Fi and mobile hotspots data is passed wireless from one place to another and hackers are finding new ways to access information. Most Wi-Fi spots are open to public use and that means it is a lot less secure. Make sure when using these spots you have proper firewalls and anti-virus software in place so that you can limit any access.

These little things can make all the difference in the world when it comes to protecting a business and they take limited time in achieving. Visit our blog for more small business accounting tips.

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